By Elliott West
Introduction
This is a story about Willie Thorne and his beloved cue. Like so many players, WT had a trusted cue and was in fact the only one he ever used in his career. It was first bought by his mother from a sports shop in Leicester for £3 2s 6d, a Walter Lindrum maple cue that originally had a red ebonite ferrule through it. A piece of equipment that was modified over time, being shortened and lengthened with the red ferrule replaced with a brass one. A cue that he claimed to have made over 146 maximum breaks with. It was so crucial to his snooker career that he admitted he could just about scrape a 50 break with a borrowed one.
Disaster Strikes
However, disaster struck when Thorne was playing Alex Higgins at Loughborough Town Hall. Losing 5-1 in the match, Willie momentarily leant against the stage, losing his balance, WT let go of the cue and it fell through a small three-inch hole in the floor. A hole was probably caused by bringing in scaffolding to construct the seating. The cue dropped down the side of a wall and through two floors into a loading bay with Thorne being able to hear the loud noise it made as it fell, touching various objects on the way down.
Thorne became emotional with tears appearing in his eyes whilst the audience burst into laughter thinking it was hilarious. The cue at the time was being held together with some plastic padding and when Willie managed to get to the cue, the damage had thankfully been taken out on the padding when the cue bounced off a concrete floor.
Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise for Thorne as when play resumed, Willie managed to get his act together and beat Alex 14-5. It was an episode that the man from Leicester probably wanted to forget and he was so fortunate that the cue didn’t snap in half as a result of the fall.
His trusted cue may have gone through the wars and been modified but it essentially did what he needed it to do. Slightly thinner than it was originally, this piece of snooker equipment was responsible for the large number of maximum breaks that Thorne managed to attain in practice against Gary Lineker and Dave Althorne. Still as good as when he first bought it from a shop in Leicester High Street, the cue was made of a fantastic piece of maple and helped Thorne with his short game but his long game did suffer over time. Since Willie’s death, the cue was recently auctioned and went to a private buyer.
